Jeremy Bentham

Jeremy Bentham (15 February 1748-6 June 1832) was a British Enlightenment thinker and the father of utilitarianism.

Biography
Jeremy Bentham was born in London, England, Great Britain on 15 February 1748, the son of a wealthy family that supported the reactionary Tory Party. Bentham was a child prodigy, reading his father's books since he was just three years old, and he was sent to the Queen's College at Oxford in 1760 at the age of 12. Rather than practice law as his family wished, he decided to write about law, and he became a social reformer. He fought for individual and economic freedom, separation of church and state, freedom of expression, equal rights for women, the right to divorce, the decriminalizing of homosexual acts, the abolition of slavery, the abolition of the death penalty, and the abolition of physical punishment. Bentham believed that the choice that gave the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of people was the right choice, advocating an early form of socialism. He died in 1832, and he had his body dissected and preserved with wax covering.